thoughts on Apocalypse World?

[pemerton]

I hate reading it. Just hate to do it.

I'll chalk this one up to there's no accounting for taste, if that's OK with you!

Here I don't agree at all. I think PbtA is a seismic shift. The GM not rolling, the complete pivot away from simulating the world that the PCs inhabit and instead making everything a reflection of their actions, and the way it makes success with consequence/cost the default roll result...that stuff is remarkably hard for trad players to wrap their heads around, requiring a major cognitive reboot for many folks. And it speeds and recenters play in huge ways, codifying a low- or no-prep approach that other games just kinda mention as an option, but then punish in practice.

However, I've read and loved your posts on this forum and you're a damn TTRPG scholar--including when it comes to PbtA--so I suspect you have some great arguments to support your position. Not trolling here at all when I ask if you can elaborate a little. For example, I've played Classic Traveler a bunch and I don't get the connection you're making. Do you mean that old-school Traveler didn't have a ton of skills, so a lot of actions were purely within the fiction?

But also, I think the fact that combat in AW doesn't shift into that traditional wargame mode is exactly why it's so novel. It's not a separate set of subsystems (or, as in a lot of games, the core system, with all non-combat as subsystems), which ditches that sense that the stuff before and after combat is sort of suspense/filler/etc., because it's initiative and damage and all those fiddly rules and numbers that settle the narrative questions. Flattening combat and non-combat is where PbtA is still at its greatest and most divisive, I think, and setting aside diceless stuff like Amber, I don't recall anyone doing that before AW in a useful or influential way.

There's a lot here!

Starting with the mechanics not simulating the world - they don't (in, say, the RQ or RM sense) but also they do. Why is there a custom move when we try to shortcut through Dremmer's territory? Why do we have a move for acting under fire but not for climbing up a scree slope - so the latter may just trigger GM narration unless it also, for some other reason in the fiction, counts as acting under fire? These are all used to establish the setting.

Look at Classic Traveller, and reword the mechanics a bit. When you try a non-ordinary manoeuvre in a vacc-suit, throw 10+ (+4 per level of vacc suit expertise). If you fail, the referee will tell you what sort of trouble you're in. Throw 7+ to remedy the situation (-4 if no vacc suit expertise; +2 per level of vacc suit expertise). If you fail, the referee will tell you the consequence - and you won't like it!

Likewise When you try to make contact for the purposes of obtaining information, hiring persons, purchasing contraband or stolen goods, etc, make a throw dictated by the referee (eg the name of an official willing to issue licenses without hassle = 5+, the location of high quality guns at a low price = 9+; -5 if no Streetwise expertise; +1 per level of Streetwise expertise). Close-knit sub-cultures (such as some portions of the lower classes, and trade groups such as workers, the underworld, etc) generally reject contact with strangers or unknown elements; if you fail, the referee will tell you how they have rejected you.

When you pilot your air/raft in a chase, throw 5+ (+1 per level of air/raft expertise); if you fail, the referee will tell you what mishap ensues. When you jump out of a starsystem in your starship, make a throw [actual number required varies a bit between 1977 and 1981 versions) to avoid drive failure.

I hope that gives the idea. I remember back in the 80s reading stuff in White Dwarf critiquing the lack of a general resolution framework in Traveller, and offering suggestions to make it more like RQ or RM (which do have such a framework). But looking at it now, and having played quite a bit of it (using the 1977 chassis) over the past few years, I see the various baroque subsystems as a strength: each is a little PbtA-style move that focuses on some bit of the action that matters for science fiction adventure in the far future. It's not as elegant as PbtA - it doesn't exploit the 2d6 maths in the same way, and tends to lack the two steps forward/one step back aspect of the PbtA 7-9 results - but I think it's there in a proto-form. And is (in my view) very playable in that sort of fashion.

Trying to pick up on some of your other points:

The integration of combat and non-combat is found in earlier systems too: Prince Valiant to a significant extent; Maelstrom Storytelling; HeroWars/Quest; as an option in Burning Wheel (using intent and task, or Bloody Versus); and of course in Baker's earlier games like DitV and In A Wicked Age. I think the PbtA innovation in this respect is taking that approach out of the scene-framed context that looms large in those other systems, and instead locating it in an if you do it, you do it framework.

On prep: I think Burning Wheel is a low-prep game (unless you count "burning" NPCs and monsters; but it has no prep of plot or even events really) that strongly rewards play in its prescribed low-prep way, and it predates AW. Prince Valiant doesn't promote itself as low-prep, but can be run like that. And so can Classic Traveller, especially taking advantage of its content-generation tools (random patron encounters, random worlds, etc). In A Wicked Age doesn't require prep beyond a "game setup" phase (that is much quicker than what I understand Fate's to be!). I tend to see this as an area where AW is at the lower end of innovation, personally.

What I see as perhaps the greatest, or at least culturally most important, innovation in AW is so clearly stating the principles that are meant to govern the GM's role. That the GM will announce future badness or misdirect by not speaking the name of the move they make is not new, from the point of view of technique. But spelling it out is a new thing.

Burning Wheel is very clear, by the standards of a RPG text, on how it is to be run. But its advice to the GM on how to narrate consequences of failure doesn't really go beyond focus on the intent rather than the task. (The Adventure Burner goes further.) Baker, on the other hand, really drills down into significant varieties of GM-fiction-introduction. One consequence in BW might be taking away their stuff (losing gear, having tools break, etc is clearly a part of the game), but Luke Crane doesn't actually come out and give you this thought-out list of consequences you might narrate on a failure.

Like I said upthread, I'm in no way wanting to deny the brilliance of AW as a game or Baker as a designer.

 

[pemerton]

Another thought: Baker calls the GM in AW the MC. The chapter called "The Master of Ceremonies" doesn't deny that the MC is a GM, but emphasises (p 108) that while "[t]here are a million ways to GM games; Apocalypse World calls for one way in particular."

It reminds me a little bit of Christopher Kubasik's use of "Fifth Business" in his Interactive Toolkit series:

Let’s start with roleplaying’s GM (referee, Storyteller or whatever). This is usually the person who works out the plot, the world and everything that isn’t the players’. To a greater or lesser degree, she is above the other players in importance, depending on the group’s temperament. In a Story Entertainment, she is just another player. Distinctly different, but no more and no less than any other player. The terms GM and referee fail to convey this spirit of equality. The term Storyteller suggests that the players are passive listeners of her tale. So here’s another term for this participant – one that invokes the spirit of Story Entertainments – Fifth Business.

Fifth Business is a term that originates from European opera companies. A character from Robertson Davies’ novel Fifth Business describes the’ term this way:

You cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business. You must have a Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero’s birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody’s death, if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without the Fifth Business!
​

This certainly sounds a lot like a GM, but it also makes it clear that he’s part of the show, not the show itself.​

I'm pretty sure Vincent Baker will have read Kubasik, given his reading of Edwards who quotes Kubasik, including this passage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, this is kind of the biggest problem with a lot of post-apocalyptic settings. The world doesn't get to the point that it does unless humans are fundamentally bastards. Which isn't true. When the chips are down, humanity is by-and-large a social creature. We are not likely to see very many cartoon villains when the dust clears, and they aren't likely going to be as successful as the genre tends to think they're going to be.

Yeah, agreed.

 

[Gradine]

Post-Apocalyptic doesn't require humanity to be bastards. It requires humanity to define "us vs. them", which we are very good at doing, and dehumanizing the other, which we also are. Add in the definitely among those who are most willing to grab at power are those that shouldn't have it, and a trend in a lot to follow a strong leader who is bringing together and empowering you and people like you and just the concept of authoritarianism. People will be kind and supportive and social animals - within their tribes - and none of that towards the outsiders who threaten their already scarce supplies and way of life.

You're right, it doesn't. The scenarios you describe are actually interesting PA worlds, where the conflicts are interpersonal but relatable. The kinds of Post-Apocalypse where the biggest guy with the most spikes on his football pads gets to be King of Kentucky or whatever and rule it with an iron fist, while smaller groups of people with football pads with smaller spikes on them carve out smaller fiefdoms where they attack and kill everyone they meet... these are remarkably un-insightful and pretty well played out at this point.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Yeah, agreed.

Not sure which timeline you guys are currently living in, but in this one the notion that unity wins the day is already debunked. We're careening toward a climate apocalypse right now that people have known about for decades, and that no one is banding together to stop. Instead we have the most powerful people and organizations on the planet closing ranks to secure dominance in the bad times to come, or just burning cash and attention on rocket technology that's irrelevant to the actual threats that are currently wrecking societies and economies. That single case of the cuddly real-world version of Lord of the Flies gets tossed around a lot, like a bright shiny object we can focus on despite countless counter-examples of power protecting itself at all costs, the poor becoming poorer and more vulnerable, and no one coming to our rescue, including some miraculous sense of community triumphing over adversity.

I really wish I agreed, in other words, but look at anything that's happening right now on a national or international level. Look at how a sense of community could have stamped out COVID months ago, and instead many countries are right back in the thick of it.

I'm all for being optimistic, really. But I think you also have to show your work.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I gotta be honest, the only real difference (between AW and DnD/etc) I'm seeing here is how much emphasis is placed by different systems on encouraging the players to be proactive instead of reactive. That is, how much encouragement to be proactive is actually written into the actual rule book.

I love a proactive player. But before you can have one of them you need a setting the player understands. They need to know the what's, where's, how's, and why's of the diegesis. But also the genre conventions. Even then, more often than not, the GM has gotta push them to be proactive. Having a ruleset that literally has "be proactive" written into it is defs gonna help. Assuming the players read it. But mostly, it comes down to the table. (Doesn't it always?)

 

[Gradine]

Not sure which timeline you guys are currently living in ...

This one, it turns out...

I'm all for being optimistic, really. But I think you also have to show your work.

People Are Good, Actually

In fact, a lot of the studies that people point to that say people are bad, actually, have debunked. Stanford Prison was rigged, the actors in the electric shock experiment were not actually very good, Robber's Cave was a do-over, and many of these older experiments just aren't showing the same results when replicated using modern practices, such as actually representative and diverse samples.

Turns out, Rousseau was right after all

 

[Gradine]

We're careening toward a climate apocalypse right now that people have known about for decades, and that no one is banding together to stop. Instead we have the most powerful people and organizations on the planet closing ranks to secure dominance in the bad times to come, or just burning cash and attention on rocket technology that's irrelevant to the actual threats that are currently wrecking societies and economies. ...despite countless counter-examples of power protecting itself at all costs, the poor becoming poorer and more vulnerable, and no one coming to our rescue, including some miraculous sense of community triumphing over adversity.

These are more complex examples that point to the intransigence of entrenched power structures built upon centuries (if not millenia) of legitimation. In a true post-apocalypse, few if any of those structures will survive; they involve symbols and tradition and not a lot of actual concrete power (one of the most typical tropes of the genre involve econonics; it turns out we've just been making money up for at least a century). When the chips are truly down, in matters of survival, we're actually pretty good at working together.

 

[Manbearcat]

I gotta be honest, the only real difference (between AW and DnD/etc) I'm seeing here is how much emphasis is placed by different systems on encouraging the players to be proactive instead of reactive. That is, how much encouragement to be proactive is actually written into the actual rule book.

I love a proactive player. But before you can have one of them you need a setting the player understands. They need to know the what's, where's, how's, and why's of the diegesis. But also the genre conventions. Even then, more often than not, the GM has gotta push them to be proactive. Having a ruleset that literally has "be proactive" written into it is defs gonna help. Assuming the players read it. But mostly, it comes down to the table. (Doesn't it always?)

The inference I'm drawing from the above is either (a) you haven't read Apocalypse World or (b) you're not putting together the integrated aspects of system (agenda + principles + resolution mechanics) that create the dynamic of aggressive protagonist (players) vs aggressive antagonism/obstacles (GM)?

Play to find out what happens

+

fill their lives with danger (provacative framing that demands action and orbits around player-flagged PC dramatic needs and

+

how this is done (ask questions and use the answers + Fronts + soft moves to provoke/portend + hard moves if there is no or insufficient uptake/response to the provocation/foretold danger + snowballing move resolution structure and maths + actual danger/cost/consequence to every move made or not made)

+

deeply thematic basic moves and playbooks and reward cycles/xp triggers


The game has teeth at every turn. It will bite you if you don't respond. It will bite you when you do respond. As a GM, your job is to bite in a way the players have signaled is interesting and keep biting. As a system, its job is to help the GM bark, then bite, and deftly manage their cognitive workload as they continuously bark and bite and be surprised at what shape play takes as teeth meet flesh. As a player, your job is to signal your interests (continuously), decide where/how to take the bites, how you deal once bitten, bite the hell back, and how/if your character can withstand this both-ways nom-fest.

I don't know if that is written too "edge-lordy" or whatever, but that is pretty much the gist. The system has enormous say on how this whole thing churns.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

These are more complex examples that point to the intransigence of entrenched power structures built upon centuries (if not millenia) of legitimation. In a true post-apocalypse, few if any of those structures will survive; they involve symbols and tradition and not a lot of actual concrete power (one of the most typical tropes of the genre involve econonics; it turns out we've just been making money up for at least a century). When the chips are truly down, in matters of survival, we're actually pretty good at working together.

This. Also, while raiding was fairly common in pre-agricultural societies, trade was much more common.

In a post-apocalypse, the survivors would have the advantage of more shared language, more shared experience, and having been raised to understand that other people are well, people.

The idea that climate crisis exists because people are bad, rather than because people are ill equipped to even understand systems as complex as the ones that oppress them (the average person isn’t causing the inertia against climate action, states and mega corporations and industries are), much less formulate the means to dismantle them without armed revolt.